Martyr's Fire (22 page)

He managed not to flinch, then forced himself to be calm, and slowly, very slowly, turned his head to see more clearly.

The black edge of the deck had redefined itself to show the black outlines of a man’s head and shoulders.

These men are shrewd. They have decided I must be hidden nearby. Instead of choosing the obvious—the ladder—they now watch from above, hoping I will not notice and betray myself with a movement
.

Thomas told himself he was safe as long as he remained still. After all, he had chosen a deep shadow.

Yet his heart continued to hammer at a frantic pace.
This is what the rabbit fears, hidden among the grass. I understand now the urge to bolt before the hounds
.

But Thomas did not.

Instead, what betrayed him was the only creature he trusted.

The puppy, deep in dreams, yelped and squirmed.

And within seconds, two of the sailors dropped to the belly of the ship. One from each side of the upper deck.

Beast yelped again, and they moved with unerring accuracy to the bale that hid him.

Moonlight glinted from extended sabers.

Thomas barely had time to stand and draw his own sword before they were upon him.

“A shout for help will do no good,” came the snarl with the approach of the first. “The captain’s drunk again, and the crew have turned a blind eye.”

“For certain,” a harsh whisper followed. “None take kindly to the manner in which you crippled my hand.”

Thomas said nothing, only waited with his sword in front.

Beast, now fully awake, pressed against his leg and growled at the attackers.

Another movement as the third sailor, the one with the limp, scuttled down the ladder from the upper deck. He, too, brandished a saber.

I have been well trained
, thought Thomas,
by Robert of Uleran, the man who surely fell in my defense at Magnus. I shall not disappoint his memory by now falling myself without a worthy fight
.

The sailors circled Thomas, shuffling slowly in the luxury of anticipation. The silver light of the moon made it an eerie dance.

Impossible to watch all three at once.

From which direction would the first blow come?

Thomas heard the whistle of steel slicing air, and instinctively stepped back. He felt a slight pull against the sleeve of his cloak, then—it seemed like an eternity of waiting later—a bright slash of pain and the wetness of blood against his arm.

“Ho, ho,” the yellow-eyed sailor said, laughing. “My weaker hand finds revenge for the damage you did the other!”

The sailors circled more.

One dodged in and dodged back, daring Thomas to attack, daring Thomas to leave the bale behind him and expose his back.

The others laughed in low tones.

This is the game. Cats with a cornered mouse. They are in no hurry
.

“Gold and your life,” the second sailor whispered. “But only after you beg to be spared.”

The other two chortled agreement.

Until that moment, Thomas had felt the deep cold of fear. His blood would soak the rough wood at his feet; that he knew. But their taunts filled him with a building anger, and his fear became distant.

“Beg?” Thomas said in a voice he hardly recognized as his. “Should I die, you will die with me. This is a fight that will cost you dearly.”

The yellow-eyed sailor mimicked his voice with a high-pitched giggle. “This is a fight that will cost you dearly.”

That slow-growing anger suddenly overwhelmed Thomas. He became quiet with a fury that could barely be restrained.

He lifted his sword and pointed it directly at the yellow-eyed sailor and spoke with compressed rage. “You shall be the first to taste doom.”

The yellow-eyed sailor slapped his neck. Then, incredibly, as Thomas lowered his sword to a protective stance, the yellow-eyed sailor sank to his knees, then soundlessly fell face forward onto the deck.

What madness is this?

Thomas had no time to wonder. The second sailor betrayed a movement, and Thomas whirled to face him. Still carried by that consuming rage, Thomas pointed his sword at the man’s eyes.

The man grunted with pain, eyes wide and gleaming with surprise in the moonlight. He, too, dropped to his knees and tumbled forward to land as heavily as a sack of fish.

What madness is this?

Thomas answered his own bewilderment.
Whatever it might be, this is not the time to question
.

He spun on the third sailor, who now staggered back in fear.

Thomas raised his sword and advanced.

“No!” the man shrieked loudly in terror. “Not me!”

Then he gasped, as if slapped hard across the face. His mouth gaped open, then shut before he pitched forward.

That shriek had pierced the night air, and from behind Thomas came the sounds of men moving through the ship.

He gathered his cloak about him, scooped Beast into his other arm, and fled toward the ladder.

Thomas had fourteen nights and fifteen days to contemplate the miracle that had saved his life, fourteen nights and fifteen days of solitude to puzzle the events. For not a single member of the crew dared disturb him.

The three sailors had risen the next day from stupor, unable to explain to the crew members who had dragged them away what evil had befallen them at the command of Thomas’s sword.

Each day, the cook’s assistant had been sent with food. Each day, the cook’s assistant had darted away without even daring to look Thomas in the eye.

While fourteen nights and fifteen days was enough time for the shallow slice on his arm to heal, it was not enough time for Thomas to make sense those scant minutes of rage beneath the moonlight.

Many times, indeed, he had taken his sword and pointed it at objects around him, disbelieving that it might have an effect, but half-expecting the object to fall or move, so complete was his inability to understand how he, in his rage, had been able to fell three sailors intent on his death, without touching one.

And for fourteen nights and fifteen days, he fought the strange sensation that he should know what had happened. That somewhere deep in his memory, there was a vital clue in those strange events.

On the sixteenth day, he remembered. Like a blast of snow-filled air, it struck him with a force that froze him midway through a troubled pace.

No, it cannot be!

Thomas strained to recall words that had been spoken to him in near panic the night Magnus fell to the Priests of the Holy Grail.

He had been hidden in a stable, saved from death only because of his guise as a beggar, while the castle fell.

As Thomas projected his mind backward, the smells and sounds returned as if he were there again. The pungent warmth of horses and hay, the stamping of restless hooves, the blanket of darkness, a tired, frightened old woman clutching his arm, and the messenger in front of him.

“M’lord,”
Tiny John had blurted,
“the priests appeared within the castle as if from the very walls! Like hordes of rats. They—”

“Robert of Uleran,”
Thomas had interrupted with a leaden voice. He wanted to sit beside the old woman and, along with her, moan in low tones.
“How did he die?”

“Die?”

“You informed me that he spoke his last words.”

“Last words to me, m’lord. Guards were falling in all directions, slapping themselves as they fell! The priests claimed it was the hand of God and called for all to lay down their arms. It was then that Robert of Uleran pushed this puppy into my arms and told me to flee, told me to give you warning so that you’d not return to the castle …”

No, it cannot be
, Thomas repeated as he remembered. Yet the Druids had posed as those false Priests of the Holy Grail; the Druids had mysteriously appeared within the castle—undoubtedly through the secret passages, which only in his last hours there had Thomas discovered riddled Magnus—and the Druids had somehow struck down the well-armed soldiers within.

Guards were falling in all directions, slapping themselves as they fell.

Yellow-eye had slapped himself, then fallen.

A Druid was aboard this same ship.

Thomas had little time to search or wonder. An hour later, a shout reached him from the sailor on watch at the top of the mast.

The port of Lisbon had been sighted.

To present myself as bait would be difficult under any circumstance
, thought Thomas.
But to be bait without knowing the predator, and to be bait in a strange town with no idea where to spring and set the trap is sheer lunacy
.

Especially if that strange town is a danger in itself
.

Lisbon sat at the mouth of the wide and slow River Tagus, a river deep enough to bring the ships in and out of the harbor area. The town itself was nestled between the river and two chains of hills rising on each side. It was one of the greatest shipping centers of Europe, for the Portuguese were some of the best sailors in the world.

Thomas stood at the end of a crowded street that led to the great docks of Lisbon. He leaned from one foot to the other, hoping to give an appearance of the uncertainty that he truly felt.

Which eyes follow me now?

Impossible to decide.

Hundreds upon hundreds, perhaps thousands of people flooded the docks of Lisbon. Swaggering men of the sea, cackling hags, merchants pompously wrapped in fine silk, soldiers, bellowing fish sellers.

Sea gulls screamed and swooped. Wild and vicious cats, fat from fish offal, slunk from shadow to shadow. Rats, bold and large, scurried up or down the thick ropes that tethered ships to shore.

It was confusion driven by a single purpose. Greed. Those canny enough to survive the chaos—human or animal—also thrived in the
chaos. Those who couldn’t were often found in the forgotten corners of alleys and never received a proper burial.

Thomas knew he needed to find such an alley, if only to finally expose his follower. And he only had a few hours of sunlight left. For he knew he would need the protection of a legion of angels should he be foolish enough to wander these corners of hell in the dark.

He moved forward, glad once again for the comfort of the puppy beneath his arm.

It took half of the remaining daylight to find the proper place for ambush.

He had glanced behind him occasionally, only during the moments he pretended to examine a merchant’s wares. Spices from Africa once, exquisite pottery from Rome another time, and strange objects of glass called spectacles, which the bulky man with the too-wide smile had assured him were the latest rage among highbred men and ladies all across Europe.

Not once had Thomas spotted a pursuer during those quick backward glances. Yet he dared not hope that meant he was alone or safe. Not after the strangeness of men collapsing because of an upraised sword.

Then, during his wanderings, he had noticed a side alley leading away from the busy street. He walked through once and discovered it opened, after much twisting and turning, onto another busy street. The alley itself held many hidden doorways, already darkened by the shadows of late afternoon.